OK, I know that Saxton didn't authorize this in HIS ITW

[Illuminatus Primus]

Its not a fucking city if there are fewer people than in a suburb spawl; don't give me this sophistry.

Either you have it, or you don't. You have NO evidence about how populated or lack thereof the city sprawls are, and how much automation is at use; I have filmic visuals of said city in different regions of the planet, and canon dialogue.

You have nothing but orbital-distance views and personal insistance; I say again - since we know large scale weaponry like the Eye involves extreme automation, why not the Death Star?

[Lord of the Farce]

-snip

The way you are talking about it, it would have been impossible for Alderaan to be at least partially self-sufficient to begin with by using droid-based agriculture, or even have signifigant food stockpile in case of emergencies.

-snip
The Rebels' intelligence is shit. I recommend not appealing to it, especially when the source you cite it from itself undermines the quality of their intelligence.

So 44 ships is the majority of the Empire's fleet, which at last count had some 25,000 Star Destroyers, and millions of other capital ships?

I am sorry, normally a citation involves a quote (to prove context is not removed and the interpretation is not selective), and the source - so it can be independently verified.

So, the citation, por favor.

(Elscol:)"We could, but hitting such sites still doesn't bring the nature of war home to the people. We need to frighten them, deeply."
(Iella:)"And hitting military targets won't do that?"
"Eventually. This will be faster."
Iella frowned. "Wouldn't just shooting random people accomplish the same thing?"
Elscol shrugged. "Probably. It's a backup plan."
"You can't be serious." Iella looked at the smaller woman in utter disbelief. "That would be murder. This is murder, for all intents and purposes. You can't kill innocent people."
"Look, Iella, there are no innocent people here." Elscol planeted fists on her hips. "Over the years I've helped dozens of worlds liberate themselves from the Imps, and part of each fight is making the populace wake up to what's really going on..." -snip
Iella had raised an eyebrow. "You sound as if you would kill his children, too."
"Erisi's his daughter - Huttlings grow up to be Hutts."

Really, since the Nazis, the Soviets, and the Iraqi insurgents all use attacks on collaborators and civilians to scare the populace onto the right side (since its clear what happens to you if you side on the wrong)?

So the Rebels are no different to the Nazis, the Soviets, and the Iraqi insurgents?

-snip
Get back to me on it, though.

So what's your answer to what amounts to open rebellion? I mean, how did nobody notice that network of incredibly powerful energy shields "suddenly" pop up over their heads?

*Ahem* See the SSD entry. As long as Pablo's running the Databank, I'm not going to be incredibly willing to trust everything in it.

And some people aren't incredibly willing to trust everything in WEG or WOTC. Does that matter?

[Illuminatus Primus]

The way you are talking about it, it would have been impossible for Alderaan to be at least partially self-sufficient to begin with by using droid-based agriculture, or even have signifigant food stockpile in case of emergencies.

Why the fuck would they? Are our cities or communities at all partially self-sufficient? Do they have significant food stockpiles? Do not treat your premises as given truths, especially when they do not match up with reality.

Prove they have these things; I'm not entitled to presuppose your assumptions.

And you're still hinging on that the entire Alderaanian citizenry will be just delighted by this turn of events and fall behind the Viceroy for starvation, as opposed to overthrowing them to preserve their money, power, and standard of life.

Prove they will want to hold out in an extended siege for their leader who kept his treason secret from them.

So 44 ships is the majority of the Empire's fleet, which at last count had some 25,000 Star Destroyers, and millions of other capital ships?

When those ships can overwhelm any system you have by your own projections, yeah, buddy. And intelligence service unable to do that would be pretty useless.

And again, nice only choosing a single example to nitpick and refute. I suppose this delivers a full broadside to all my other examples?

[snip]

Well thank you, but I still don't really see what Star Destroyers do against terrorist attacks anyhow, or the fact that, in truth, the Empire had more than enough.

So the Rebels are no different to the Nazis, the Soviets, and the Iraqi insurgents?

They're no different than almost any rebellion in history; they always attack the collaborators.

So what's your answer to what amounts to open rebellion? I mean, how did nobody notice that network of incredibly powerful energy shields "suddenly" pop up over their heads?

Coruscant, maintains its shields constantly; so does Byss. Certainly other worlds, especially in the times of the New Order, do so as well. Especially after the immolation of Camaas.

Your argument is hinging on the fact shields were raised in response to the Death Star, an assumption which is not a given (see counter examples) and you cannot prove.

Your argument is predicated on the following:

The concerted and intentional resistance of the Alderaanian populace.

You have no evidence. In fact, they probably wouldn't, since they're not co-conspirators, and mostly rich liberals which probably don't want to lose that. Moreover, your evidence that a long term siege was a possible risk is based on nothing more than your insistance that this must occur, and no evidence.

And moreover, you cannot even establish initial resistance because you do not know if the shields were raised in response to the Death Star; you just asserted it as truth. Sorry bub, but that doesn't cut the cake.

In conclusion:

Fucking prove it.

I don't have to entertain any of your assertions.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

Its not a fucking city if there are fewer people than in a suburb spawl; don't give me this sophistry.

Yet you seem to think the Death Star's city sprawls are nearly empty.

You have NO evidence about how populated or lack thereof the city sprawls are, and how much automation is at use; I have filmic visuals of said city in different regions of the planet, and canon dialogue.

You have no idea of how populated the city sprawls of Coruscants are either (the ones out of your sight).

You have nothing but orbital-distance views and personal insistance; I say again - since we know large scale weaponry like the Eye involves extreme automation, why not the Death Star?

The Eye is IIRC, what? 6 miles? 8 miles? Besides, it is clearly in a different class, as a totally unmanned vessel. The Eclipse and Sovereign were clearly not designed as this unmanned vessel.

The so-called automation on even the Dark Force ships was not really that great. It is more bringing the crew down in line (when you consider the Vic has maybe 5000 crew, the Dreadnaught having 2000 is reasonable, not small).

We have seen the Death Star's internal human density, and the officials admit city sprawls cover the thing (which is consistent with the orbital views). Yet you insist one must be heavily populated and one is not.

That kind of forced rationalization might make sense for a TFNer type who tree-hugs the 1 million official count. But you seem to have no problem with the idea it was bigger than 1 million. Which means you are no longer bound by that number. Why you insist on saying it cannot be 2000x is honestly beyond me.

Besides, a person that first speculates that Alderaan must be self-insufficient because you think it is "wealthy" and "elitist", (see your posts on this thread's P.7) and then takes that speculation as an assumption to ban out any idea of farms and factories (by the way, farms and factories were mentioned in the ANH noveliation P.129) making Alderaan self-independent should not be speaking so loudly...

Coruscant, maintains its shields constantly; so does Byss. Certainly other worlds, especially in the times of the New Order, do so as well. Especially after the immolation of Camaas

A capital world should not be taken as a sign of the whole.

[quote='GEDB, V-150 Planet Defender"]These weapon emplacements are prohibitively expensive even for many Planetary Governments, they are often used to supplement planetary shields, which can take several minutes to activate and are impractical and impossible to maintain at all times due to their tremendous energy demands. They are also used to provide cover fire until the planetary shield can be raised or they can be synchronized with planetary shields for strategic defensive fire, where the shields are lowered for a split second allowing the Ion Cannon to fire several shots to inflict serious damage on the orbiting enemy ships. Then raise shields again before the enemy can react with return fire.[/quote]

To further back this was the case was their claim in the DESB that there was no shield on Alderaan. That, as we all know, is a lie. But that lie would have been very hard to keep if the Aldies generally keep their shield up, so there would be plenty of witnesses of Aldie's shield (since they would have to take it down to let the merchants in, and the shield would be readable on the sensors). In fact, I speculate it might have been a recent acquisition, thus reducing the # of people that could counteract the lie in the report.

[Lord of the Farce]

Why the fuck would they? Are our cities or communities at all partially self-sufficient? Do they have significant food stockpiles? Do not treat your premises as given truths, especially when they do not match up with reality.

Prove they have these things; I'm not entitled to presuppose your assumptions.

Go back a page, and look at the scan Stofsk provided:

(Alderaan:) As for its fauna, two species stand out and are widely known throughout the galaxy... The second is the nerfs. herd animals whose meat is exceptionally delicious and sought all over the galaxy. Both species exist on other worlds, but in greatly reduced numbers.

Also:

Alderaan, with it's many cities, farms, factories, and towns - and traitors, Vader reminded himself.

So Alderaan had the single largest population anywhere in the galaxy of a well known food animal, and they were acknowledge as having farms in one of the highest source of canon. Cheers.

When those ships can overwhelm any system you have by your own projections, yeah, buddy. And intelligence service unable to do that would be pretty useless.

And again, nice only choosing a single example to nitpick and refute. I suppose this delivers a full broadside to all my other examples?

Except that is 44 ships which the Empire can't use as reserve. And as pointed out by Kazuaki Shimazaki, they can't penetrate Alderaan's shield in any reasonable period of time. And as the evidence points out, they can't starve Alderaan out.

They're no different than almost any rebellion in history; they always attack the collaborators.

So random civilians are collaborators now? I thought you were trying to argue that the Rebels were different from the Empire.

Coruscant, maintains its shields constantly; so does Byss. Certainly other worlds, especially in the times of the New Order, do so as well. Especially after the immolation of Camaas.

Your argument is hinging on the fact shields were raised in response to the Death Star, an assumption which is not a given (see counter examples) and you cannot prove.

You mean the shield that Alderaan wasn't suppose to have?

"The defense systems on Alderaan, despite the senator's protestations to the contrary, were as strong as any in the Empire. I should conclude that our demonstration was as impressive as it was thorough."

[Illuminatus Primus]

So Alderaan had the single largest population anywhere in the galaxy of a well known food animal, and they were acknowledge as having farms in one of the highest source of canon. Cheers.

So you provided proof - good. Now show me how the aristocrats of Alderaan will be pleased when they're about to get politically and financially fucked by the Empire, and all their consumer goods are about to be cut off. Food is just one item. Economic survival is another.

Except that is 44 ships which the Empire can't use as reserve. And as pointed out by Kazuaki Shimazaki, they can't penetrate Alderaan's shield in any reasonable period of time. And as the evidence points out, they can't starve Alderaan out.

Yes, but her power supply will run out, and the shield will collapse; this of course is assuming all the rich Alderaanians really want to lose their entire way of life to support their leader's treason that they were not even made aware of.

So random civilians are collaborators now? I thought you were trying to argue that the Rebels were different from the Empire.

That wasn't my argument; and the total subjugation of the galaxy and subsuming into Palpatine's Will makes it impossible for the Alliance to be morally equivalent to the Empire.

You mean the shield that Alderaan wasn't suppose to have?

"The defense systems on Alderaan, despite the senator's protestations to the contrary, were as strong as any in the Empire. I should conclude that our demonstration was as impressive as it was thorough."

It is incidental that that quote is used to demonstrate a deflector shield being present - the primary evidence is the visuals. Moreover, Leia's argument was that Alderaan had no weapons. A deflector shield is not a weapon. You cannot demonstrate that the shield was what the "defenses as strong as any" were; especially when most worlds have anti-orbital batteries, and these are weapons. Can you really divine the specificity out of that quote? By all means, show me the context which shows that.

[Rogue 9]

So the Rebels are no different to the Nazis, the Soviets, and the Iraqi insurgents?

Note that Iella was shocked. Elscol was an ass, to put it lightly, and not a member of the Alliance.

[Illuminatus Primus]

Yet you seem to think the Death Star's city sprawls are nearly empty.

Have we seen them? Nope. We have seen Coruscant's cityscape. And moreover - it is clear from the Death Star Technical Companion and the obviousness of the fact that the Death Star is a battle station that the "city sprawls" are not literally cities to begin with - so its useless to harp over the definition of that word.

You have no idea of how populated the city sprawls of Coruscants are either (the ones out of your sight).

Except, idiot, we do know that they are cities, and we have seen multiple examples of Coruscanti cities.

Military battle stations ipso facto do not have literal cities; apples and oranges. So we know the term isn't literal there like it is with Coruscant, and we haven't seen even one.

The Eye is IIRC, what? 6 miles? 8 miles? Besides, it is clearly in a different class, as a totally unmanned vessel. The Eclipse and Sovereign were clearly not designed as this unmanned vessel.

Ah, I see; there can be no application of technology is degrees - it must be a full warship, or it must be unmanned.

Face it, you can't prove the Death Star HAS TO be extremely more populated because of examples like the Eye.

We have seen the Death Star's internal human density,

At the equatorial trench, where hangars and the overbridge and other highly crew-intensive regions are located.

and the officials admit city sprawls cover the thing (which is consistent with the orbital views). Yet you insist one must be heavily populated and one is not.

And you have no idea what that means since they're not literal cities and we've never seen an example of one's population density.

That kind of forced rationalization might make sense for a TFNer type who tree-hugs the 1 million official count. But you seem to have no problem with the idea it was bigger than 1 million. Which means you are no longer bound by that number. Why you insist on saying it cannot be 2000x is honestly beyond me.

I'm not. You're trying to prove that it HAS TO BE >2000x and you cannot do that.

Besides, a person that first speculates that Alderaan must be self-insufficient because you think it is "wealthy" and "elitist", (see your posts on this thread's P.7) and then takes that speculation as an assumption to ban out any idea of farms and factories (by the way, farms and factories were mentioned in the ANH noveliation P.129) making Alderaan self-independent should not be speaking so loudly...

Factories are useless without raw materials; I doubt the Alderaanians are going to rip up their preciously preserved little world. I also doubt they're eager to lose their livelihoods to protect Bail's secret little screw-up.

A capital world should not be taken as a sign of the whole.

When your argument HINGES on it being raised in the event of the Death Star's arrival, you better post proof, or retract. This becomes more ridiculous if the shield really is the defenses from the quote, because then they must be as tight at Coruscant's, and thusly always up.

[quote='GEDB, V-150 Planet Defender"]These weapon emplacements are prohibitively expensive even for many Planetary Governments, they are often used to supplement planetary shields, which can take several minutes to activate and are impractical and impossible to maintain at all times due to their tremendous energy demands. They are also used to provide cover fire until the planetary shield can be raised or they can be synchronized with planetary shields for strategic defensive fire, where the shields are lowered for a split second allowing the Ion Cannon to fire several shots to inflict serious damage on the orbiting enemy ships. Then raise shields again before the enemy can react with return fire.

[/quote]

So its obviously wrong. Contradicted by other canon.

To further back this was the case was their claim in the DESB that there was no shield on Alderaan. That, as we all know, is a lie. But that lie would have been very hard to keep if the Aldies generally keep their shield up, so there would be plenty of witnesses of Aldie's shield (since they would have to take it down to let the merchants in, and the shield would be readable on the sensors). In fact, I speculate it might have been a recent acquisition, thus reducing the # of people that could counteract the lie in the report.

Idle speculation; it could've just been utter NR disinformation with dissent being silenced. You can't really direct it one way or another, so it really doesn't matter and proves nothing.

Real evidence, por favor.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

Have we seen them? Nope. We have seen Coruscant's cityscape. And moreover - it is clear from the Death Star Technical Companion and the obviousness of the fact that the Death Star is a battle station that the "city sprawls" are not literally cities to begin with - so its useless to harp over the definition of that word.

How does that change the fact they clearly are meant to be occupied (thus the comparison to cities), not nearly empty?

Except, idiot, we do know that they are cities, and we have seen multiple examples of Coruscanti cities.

We've also seen much of the Death Star.

Face it, you can't prove the Death Star HAS TO be extremely more populated because of examples like the Eye.

So you insist on using one example and applying it to the whole, despite it being clearly a special case. Face it, once you have decided you don't have to adhere to the 1 million count, there is no particular block at <2000x.

At the equatorial trench, where hangars and the overbridge and other highly crew-intensive regions are located.

So you insist all other areas are effectively empty.

I'm not. You're trying to prove that it HAS TO BE >2000x and you cannot do that.

You are assuming again. You will have to add an additional factor to bring it down - massive automation on a non-automated ship. and that all the "city sprawls" are effectively empty.

Factories are useless without raw materials; I doubt the Alderaanians are going to rip up their preciously preserved little world. I also doubt they're eager to lose their livelihoods to protect Bail's secret little screw-up.[/uote]

Point, but the farms are around, and I doubt the stockpiles won't allow them to last a good, long period, and with the farms come food.

When your argument HINGES on it being raised in the event of the Death Star's arrival, you better post proof, or retract. This becomes more ridiculous if the shield really is the defenses from the quote, because then they must be as tight at Coruscant's, and thusly always up.

They are as strong as anything in the Empire. They don't have to be always up.

So its obviously wrong. Contradicted by other canon.

How does managing to find two special exceptions to a rule invalidate a rule?

Idle speculation; it could've just been utter NR disinformation with dissent being silenced. You can't really direct it one way or another, so it really doesn't matter and proves nothing.

Oh, so the Rebel Alliance literally silenced all those smugglers and merchants, for fear they would blurt out Alderaan had a shield? Ah, and I thought they were supposed to be the good guys.

[Lord of the Farce]

So you provided proof - good. Now show me how the aristocrats of Alderaan will be pleased when they're about to get politically and financially fucked by the Empire, and all their consumer goods are about to be cut off. Food is just one item. Economic survival is another.

But they're supposed to be Goody-Two-Shoe pacifist, who lives in harmony with their world. Why would they care about economic survival?

Yes, but her power supply will run out, and the shield will collapse; this of course is assuming all the rich Alderaanians really want to lose their entire way of life to support their leader's treason that they were not even made aware of.

Would you like to provide a timeframe where the power supply for the shields will run out? After all, as you've already mentioned, there are worlds which can keep them up 24/7.

That wasn't my argument; and the total subjugation of the galaxy and subsuming into Palpatine's Will makes it impossible for the Alliance to be morally equivalent to the Empire.

They might not be morally equivalent to some of the Empire's highest official, but in action, they're not exactly polar opposites.

It is incidental that that quote is used to demonstrate a deflector shield being present - the primary evidence is the visuals. Moreover, Leia's argument was that Alderaan had no weapons. A deflector shield is not a weapon. You cannot demonstrate that the shield was what the "defenses as strong as any" were; especially when most worlds have anti-orbital batteries, and these are weapons. Can you really divine the specificity out of that quote? By all means, show me the context which shows that.

Leia mentioned that Alderaan had no weapons, we see incredibly powerful shield, and Vader mentioned that Alderaan had defenses as good as any other in the Emnpire. Obviously, Leia couldn't have also mentioned that Alderaan had no defenses off-screen.

Note that Iella was shocked. Elscol was an ass, to put it lightly, and not a member of the Alliance.

And yet, Elscol had done this kind of thing on dozens of worlds. Kind of hard when you don't have finacial or material backing (backing like the ones they had on Thyferra). IIRC, wasn't that the first time Iella was teamed up with professional "planetary liberators"? For all we know, this kind of thing (having "rogue" Alliance operatives do dirty work) is SOP. Hell, recall Black Sun people being let loose on Coruscant.

[Connor MacLeod]

We also know that after the sabotage the DS remained completely unshielded.

Yes, because that particular projector was taken out. That means it can no longer protect that region (or that it could project shielding around the Death Star). Even if they manage to restore the network with backups, there is still a big-ass DS2-sized gap due to the loss of that projector. And even assuming they could redirect any other projectors to cover the DS2, that still takes time (those facilities are big.)

So, the network in the quote means only dish network powered by a single generator (or the other generators were unable to power the shield even partially).

Except that I pointed to other examples of planetary shielding that DO employ multiple shield generators (Ukio, for example.) and we know form the Hoth Example that a single generator could not possibly provide enough protection to screen an entire planet (even if you used projectors to extend it across the whole planet.)

Or:
The whole network of generators and dishes was 'in' the complex.

So? The entire facility wasn't destroyed. Even "assuming" this extra generator was in the complex, what is that supposed to mean?

[Connor MacLeod]

What? George is the maker of the show. He can decide which sources take priority,

The fuck he can. The movies ALWAYS come first, even over Georgie Boy (at least when it comes to technical analysis.) For one thing, creator comments are Dialogue, which make them generally less reliable than observations. Further, Georgie is known to be inconsistent in his policies and opinions regarding the movies (his constant "revisionism" for example, which as lead to such wonders as Greedo shooting first and Hayden's Ghost replacing Shaw's in ROTJ.)

At best George can ignore all other sources except maybe the movies - but he cannot contradict those. This whole "G-level" canon crap somehow makes it sound as if Lucas's opinion is paramount over all other data.

and I never heard of anything saying the Novelization being just about direclty under the films being changed.

I've never heard of the novelizations being higher than any of the other second-tier canon sourcse. The radio dramas have always rated on the same level as the novelizations, for example. And the DK books as "nonfiction" also qualify as canon, and to my knowledge have not been given a lower ranking than the novels or radio drama.

Of course, if you have evidence to prove otherwise, I would love to see it.

But they are clearly going at lower relative velocities, possibly due to navigational difficulties.

And as we all known, we follow the every second Rebel's approach to the Death Star, right? At best they were several thousand kms away from the DS2 - They can cover that distance EASILY in a matter of seconds given their accelerative capabilities.

The backup generator should already be powered up and feeding the system in parallel mode,

Its not a "backup" if its already running, is it? And if they have to run TWO reactors to power the shield losing a portion of y our total generating power is goin to strain if not disrupt the entire network. the whole point of a "back up" is to have something you can fall back on in case you lose or have to deactivate the priamry system.

They MIGHT have the backup power generators active and on standby, but I doubt they have it actually producing power that they don't need (and if they need it to generate power, its not a backup.)

with more than one projector covering the DS. The destruction should show as no more than a flicker.

Hello? YOU CAN'T RUN A SHIELD NETWORK WITHOUT POWER! And according to the novelization they took out the power generator.

Incidentally, a "backup" power generator is going to be neccessary anyhow, given that according to ITW:SWT the repulsor mechanism was located in the same facility as the shield generator/projector that the Rebels destroyed. While the lack of extreme damage can suggest that the facility itself was not totally destroyed (and being 70 km in diameter, the Repulsor could be located anywhere in the facility) and thus the REpulsor might not have been taken out when the shield generator was, the same cannot be said for the facilitie's power generator, which WAS taken out. Which means that without power, the Repulsor ain't gonna work.

Besides, even if that particular facility suffered complete annihilation, how did it manage to collapse the entire network all around the planet. It is like the Rebels taking out the bridge shield generators and the whole set of shields on a ship went down.

I repeat, you cannot run a shield network if you don't have any power to give to it. The Rebels took out ONE generator, but they also took out the power generator supplying said power. (Like with Coruscant in Wedge's Gamble - take out its power generation capabilities and the shield falls.

[Connor MacLeod]

I find this intruging, but it is also still postulating unknown entities, and worse yet,

The alternative being that we ignore that the Rebels actually SURVIVED the explosion of the 2nd Death Star, even though the kinetic energy of the debris impactors would be sufficient to wipe out all life many times over in a matter of minutes. Yet this is clearly not what we see (aside from other problematical canonical aspects of the movie and second-tier canon that complicate the issue.)

At worst, it involves only a few assumptions at most, and all of them neccessary to the explanation of why the Rebels did not fry with the planet within a couple minutes of the DS2's explosion. OF course, you could go with the wormhole theory if you want.

forces us to consider that the Rebels fought through this enormous facility and a bunch of commandos would properly crew and re-erect the shield before the Death Star was destroyed.

Which assumes the Imperials are complete idiots and unaware of the implications of having a 900 km planet-destroying battlestation exploding a couple of thousand kilometers away from where they are. These are Imperials who are accustomed to warships with firepower sufficient to render entire planets uninhnabitalbe (in fact, capable of melting the crusts of planets to a substantial depth, which is MANY times greater than a mere extinction event.) I find it rather unlikely they would be unaware of what is going on, and that they would not cooperate in saving their own skins. Partticulariyl when any Imperial warships around have fled.

Unless you suggest the Imperial techs were persuaded to reestablish shield cover to protect the moon below from the Death Star.

And whats difficult to believe about this, exactly? You think they'd blithely let themselves get vaporized along with the planet?

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

At best George can ignore all other sources except maybe the movies - but he cannot contradict those. This whole "G-level" canon crap somehow makes it sound as if Lucas's opinion is paramount over all other data.

Sadly, he can. While he hasn't declared it yet (I think), but if one day, he declares that his visuals are not real (and visuals are the base of virtually all scientific analysis) portrayals, we are just going to have to choke it down. Of course, it means the near dearth of scientific analysis, but that's the way it is.

I've never heard of the novelizations being higher than any of the other second-tier canon sourcse. The radio dramas have always rated on the same level as the novelizations, for example.

Well, I know that one.

And the DK books as "nonfiction" also qualify as canon, and to my knowledge have not been given a lower ranking than the novels or radio drama.

What? They qualify as canon? Not just the parts that are explicitly in the film?

Its not a "backup" if its already running, is it? And if they have to run TWO reactors to power the shield losing a portion of y our total generating power is goin to strain if not disrupt the entire network. the whole point of a "back up" is to have something you can fall back on in case you lose or have to deactivate the priamry system.

I don't know what you are imagining. A redundant backup can be set to be Online and Operational so there is no gap when the Primary fails, UPS style. There's no gap because the power supply could be made parallel

Main(Run)-------Power_______Shielding System
Backup(Run)----Regulator

Of which either Main or Backup could shoulder the whole load in an emergency, without significant interruption.

Hello? YOU CAN'T RUN A SHIELD NETWORK WITHOUT POWER! And according to the novelization they took out the power generator.

But you said they had a backup! I said I had no problem with a backup per se.

[quoteI repeat, you cannot run a shield network if you don't have any power to give to it. The Rebels took out ONE generator, but they also took out the power generator supplying said power. (Like with Coruscant in Wedge's Gamble - take out its power generation capabilities and the shield falls.[/quote]

Are you telling me the network was like this, with "wires" (or whatever SW uses for wires) connecting everyone to the generator, and none of the local stations have their own generator:

Projector-Projector-Projector-Projector/Generator-Projector-Projector-Projecter

And they hit the center one.

[vakundok]

Connor MacLeod:
What you quoted is:

The Alliance had to strike before the facility was operational - but the Bothans also reported that hte Death Star was protected by a massive defensive shield projected from a generator and dish network located on the surface of the forest moon.

(emphasis mine)
The difference between our POVs is the following:
- You read the emphasised part as:
"the Death Star was protected by a portion of a massive defensive shield projected from a generator and dish network"
- whereas I read it as:
"the Death Star was protected by the massive defensive shield projected from a generator and dish network"

[Darth Wong]

Sadly, he can. While he hasn't declared it yet (I think), but if one day, he declares that his visuals are not real (and visuals are the base of virtually all scientific analysis) portrayals, we are just going to have to choke it down. Of course, it means the near dearth of scientific analysis, but that's the way it is.

Yeah sure, a guy who prides himself on being a "visual filmmaker" is going to declare that the visuals are less important than the books and dialogue, neither of which he has ever paid half as much attention to as the movies. He doesn't even write the fucking things himself. Did he ever bother to revise the original trilogy novels, despite his meticulous attempts to tweak the visuals of his movie trilogy? Nope.

Star Wars is and was always meant to be a primarily visual story. Anyone who denies that is on crack.

[Vympel]

*brain hurts*

WTF is this debate about now again? Alderaan, Death Star, Coruscant, shield generators, eh?

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

... and I don't get it too well.

Let's see:
1) I originally pointed out a falsehood in Wiki's description of the Endor Holocaust.
2) Somewhere in there, I made the mistake of brushing over how in fact I kind of like the Endor Holocaust, in terms of story depth and plot.
3) That got the attention of IRGCommandoJoe, who insists the Ewoks weren't manipulated, supported by Connor McLeod.
4) I think then I made another mistake of brushing over my personal dislike of the Rebel Alliance, and briefly mentioned their part of the culpability in the Galactic Civil War (I never intended to fully absolve the Empire of its part).
5) This blew up into a another full blown Imperial Morality thread.
6) And of course, Alderaan always shows up at one point or another in such a thread.
a) The pro-Imps (also known as the Imperial Apologists) imagine Alderaan as an independent world with a high dissident (traitor) proportion, that the DS had more people than the official population of Alderaan, that Tarkin wished to use this one blast to save trillions from dying ... and so on.
b) The anti-Imps (actually the "conventional" view') imagine Bail Organa and a few others were the only problem (and some even think that those guys are blissfully unaware of Bail Organa endangering the lot of them), the DS has only one million people and any other spaces in the DS were empty of humans, that there were lots of ways to get past Aldie's shield (I had honestly yet to see one with a good chance IMHO) ... you know this drill, do you?

That's one route. The other route went like this:
2) Connor McLeod suggests some problems with the traditional conception of the Endor Holocaust. Basically, we tend to underestimate the damage.
3) He then proposes a shield network solution (the planetary shield idea), which now has a new backer, the ITW.
4) This gets into a row, which basically involves trying to rationalize the apparent conflict b/w the novelization (which seems to state all shielding was lost when the Rebs blew up the facility) and the ITW, which implies a network that Connor thinks he can use to protect Endor. it won't stop the Holocaust, but at least it'd stop tat 80km/s rock frag pattern from immediately hitting the planet (which will hit it with enough energy to cause the atmosphere to boil off, Dankayo style or worse). When the shield turns off, the dust falls into the atmosphere in a soft scenario, causing a Nuke Winter, but making Endor more reparable. In fact, if not for the novelization, I won't mind taking it without an eyeblink.

Does this help?

[Vympel]

Yeah it does actually- thanks for that.

[Kurgan]

Sadly, he can. While he hasn't declared it yet (I think), but if one day, he declares that his visuals are not real (and visuals are the base of virtually all scientific analysis) portrayals, we are just going to have to choke it down. Of course, it means the near dearth of scientific analysis, but that's the way it is.

Yeah sure, a guy who prides himself on being a "visual filmmaker" is going to declare that the visuals are less important than the books and dialogue, neither of which he has ever paid half as much attention to as the movies. He doesn't even write the fucking things himself. Did he ever bother to revise the original trilogy novels, despite his meticulous attempts to tweak the visuals of his movie trilogy? Nope.

Star Wars is and was always meant to be a primarily visual story. Anyone who denies that is on crack.

I'm on crack! No wait, I agree with you. ; )

When I first read that, I was thinking of the Lucas quote about how the movies (I forget at what stage of their development) only represented "20 or 30% of my original vision." But that's probably not what K.S. was referring to...

For now the most "real" (for lack of a better term) representation of Star Wars we can look at are the DVD's. Until Lucas decides to revise 'em again, that is.

Btw, was there ever a discussion on this article:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/P ... 8ipzbt.asp in here? I figure yes, but I wanted to be sure.

[Illuminatus Primus]

How does that change the fact they clearly are meant to be occupied (thus the comparison to cities), not nearly empty?

Oh, so they are intended to be occupied. Now please explain how you go from this to conclusively being able to state from the evidence that more people died aboard the Death Star than Alderaan?

Even in environmentally friendly civilization, and habitation confined to geological constructs or idyllic cities on plains, one would expect more population. Afterall, Geonosis, which is obviously dependent on outside supply and agriculture, has hundreds of billions of inhabitants. And they all live in catacombs. Alderaaan should have a similar scale in population, just by examining some clearly heavily - albeit in a tree-hunger way - built-up areas like Aldera and Crevice City; this is at least comparable to Earth's population centers (such as New York City, Tokyo, etc.). Moreover, you can be as populated as Earth or more even and have far less effect on the environement when you're part of a massive interdependent galactic civilization.

We've also seen much of the Death Star.

No, it is not comparable. We saw the equatorial trench, which is not the city sprawls. On Coruscant, we saw Galactic City, which, believe it or not, is a city. The former confines all manner of delicate and manpower-intensive mechanisms such as the sublight and hyperdrive engines, hangar bays, detention centers, and the fucking overbridge.

Praytell, what precise information do you have for arguing how much stuff how densely must be in the city sprawls? We haven't the slightest idea what a city sprawl is really supposed to be in terms of density, role, and composition. We do have a rough idea when it comes to the Coruscanti cityscape.

Apples. And oranges.

So you insist on using one example and applying it to the whole, despite it being clearly a special case. Face it, once you have decided you don't have to adhere to the 1 million count, there is no particular block at <2000x.

No, buddy, there's a big difference between saying "1 million is an unreasonable number," and "the crew figure must exceed 2000 x its recorded amount and it most assuredly exceeds the population of Alderaan, which is totally reasonable at 2 billion. [straight faced smile]"

You have no conclusive evidence to leap from "it must be larger" to "it most definitely is larger than Alderaan." Its supposition, admit it.

So you insist all other areas are effectively empty.

No, don't twist my words; I simply provided the obvious reasons why one expects a healthy crew distribution in the equatorial trench regions - we have no such evidence on the city sprawls so concluding they MUST be city-like or that it HAS TO be larger than Alderaan's rather similarly unrealistic population. You do not have the evidence to levy such precise conclusions.

Unfortunately, your Imp Wanking is in large part predicated on nonsense like this and therefore you'll protect the hypothesis.

You are assuming again. You will have to add an additional factor to bring it down - massive automation on a non-automated ship. and that all the "city sprawls" are effectively empty.

Hahahaha. I have to add an additional factor to avoid contradicting the canon by extreme orders of magnitude? You're hilarious, quite frankly, as if the default position lies closer to you. Canon sided, however unrealistically, on the lower end. Live with it.

Like I said, you do not have the evidence to reach the precise conclusions that your other arguments are predicated on. Too bad.

Point, but the farms are around, and I doubt the stockpiles won't allow them to last a good, long period, and with the farms come food.

What stockpiles?

They are as strong as anything in the Empire. They don't have to be always up.

No, they don't have to be. But you can't prove that they were raised in response to the Death Star. There's no evidence to prove or even suggest that. NONE.

So that argument is based on vague supposition and implication and maybes and probablys. Color me surprised. Its like the rest of this shitbox you call an argument.

How does managing to find two special exceptions to a rule invalidate a rule?

Because you're arguing that they CANNOT be held up constantly, which they obviously can. Why would Byss and Coruscant have some magic free-pass from Conservation of Energy which allows them to have magic perpetual shields.

And you still have no evidence that the shields were raised against the Death Star. I love you guys postulating aggressive actions on one end which there's no evidence for.

Oh, so the Rebel Alliance literally silenced all those smugglers and merchants, for fear they would blurt out Alderaan had a shield? Ah, and I thought they were supposed to be the good guys.

Or Alderaan was relatively isolationist; we know she was politically speaking, an outcast, and there's precedent for this kind of behavior: Corellia during the Clone Wars.

Really there's no evidence for your position, so you'll nitpick idle suggestions I make in alternative. So fucking what? You still can't prove the shields were raised against the Death Star - which is a major premise of yours. You lose.

[Illuminatus Primus]

But they're supposed to be Goody-Two-Shoe pacifist, who lives in harmony with their world. Why would they care about economic survival?

Because goofy rich liberals (most extreme environmentalist included here) don't care at all about their Malibu mansions and careers. Nope, not at all.

Would you like to provide a timeframe where the power supply for the shields will run out? After all, as you've already mentioned, there are worlds which can keep them up 24/7.

Since you guys insist that the shields, except Byss and Coruscant, must be kept down due to power constraints. Alternatively, if you're now abandoning you're baseless "the shield raising is obviously an intentionally and popularly hostile action which necessitates total annhiliation!" thesis, and now saying the shield may be kept up for a long time, than, as TISB describes, the Empire can simply deploy orbital nightcloaks, starving the planet of EM and killing the harvest. If they open the shield to try and shoot down the sats, they risk the generators being shot by the Imperials in orbit.

They might not be morally equivalent to some of the Empire's highest official, but in action, they're not exactly polar opposites.

Too bad that guy wasn't in the Alliance. Oh, technicalities!

Leia mentioned that Alderaan had no weapons, we see incredibly powerful shield, and Vader mentioned that Alderaan had defenses as good as any other in the Emnpire. Obviously, Leia couldn't have also mentioned that Alderaan had no defenses off-screen.

I didn't see any plausible scene cuts where "and no defenses, either!" could have slipped through.

More likely, but antiethical to your Goodie Imp position, Vader was coming up with a sorry-ass refutation to the Princess' claim by citing static defenses as equivalent to offensive weaponry.

And yet, Elscol had done this kind of thing on dozens of worlds. Kind of hard when you don't have finacial or material backing (backing like the ones they had on Thyferra). IIRC, wasn't that the first time Iella was teamed up with professional "planetary liberators"? For all we know, this kind of thing (having "rogue" Alliance operatives do dirty work) is SOP. Hell, recall Black Sun people being let loose on Coruscant.

In other words, you have no evidence, like usual.

[Illuminatus Primus]

I'll do the job of refuting my orbital nightcloak reference in Imperial Apologist style for everyone to see: "Uh uh...it has drawbacks; you can shoot down the satellites!!111shift+one Therefore you must KILL EVERYONE. This is obviously the only solution!"

Like I said; these guys know military imperatives about as well as the Bush Admin does. Black, and white.

[Kazuaki Shimazaki]

Since you guys insist that the shields, except Byss and Coruscant, must be kept down due to power constraints. Alternatively, if you're now abandoning you're baseless "the shield raising is obviously an intentionally and popularly hostile action which necessitates total annhiliation!" thesis, and now saying the shield may be kept up for a long time, than, as TISB describes, the Empire can simply deploy orbital nightcloaks, starving the planet of EM and killing the harvest. If they open the shield to try and shoot down the sats, they risk the generators being shot by the Imperials in orbit.

THat at least is an idea. But that still is gambling on the will of the people. See scenarios involving the idea that Alderaan is not self-sufficient in food. Basically, if hundreds of millions starve in pain over months, and then the ISB has to come in and send hundreds of millions more (assuming a 2 bil population) to Kessel or execution, is that really such a relative mercy?

At the time of Alderaan, also, they were "experimental" (the ISB was written after Yavin). I'm not sure how many people would think of using an Experimental Weapon.

Most of the rest of your ideas involve pitting Exceptions vs the Rule.

Hahahaha. I have to add an additional factor to avoid contradicting the canon by extreme orders of magnitude

The "Modified Golden Mean Fallacy" I see. Once you've decided to break with the official number, you are not supposed to keep it in mind, and let it affect your canon calculations. It is probably this kind of thinking that led to the 12.8km Executor.

Your Automation Theory is also fundamentally unfalsifiable. If I somehow manage to prove Sprawl 1 is occupied with something useful, you'd want me to prove Sprawl 2, then Sprawl 3.

And your constant emphasis on comparing it with Alderaan is not my point. It looks more like a subtle Appeal to Motive. The population estimate (billions range) I use is the Saxton-based one that I usually use. It was not made just to say "More people died on the DS than Alderaan", and it'd only be a small positive if it does. And honestly, on another day, in another thread, I'm not sure whether you'd contest it. I would contest the 1 million claim anywhere, not just here.

If you want to make a case for Alderaan's population being larger than 2 billion, you are free to make your pitch, and if it validates (though I'm not sure how you are going to do so, given that we don't even have close canon shots of Alderaan), I'm not going to try and raise the DS' population in some kind of silly matching game (unless, of course, I come up with something compelling I'm willing to pitch anywhere, not just in threads about the Ethics of Blowing Up Alderaan - hell, if you made a good pitch, I'd even remember to point it out the next time someone uses the two billion figure, and not just in these threads).

Or Alderaan was relatively isolationist; we know she was politically speaking, an outcast, and there's precedent for this kind of behavior: Corellia during the Clone Wars.

How does "relatively isolationist" = She has no incoming traders, tourist ship pilots, merchants, smugglers ... etc, who might just have noticed that always up planetary shield.

[Illuminatus Primus]

THat at least is an idea. But that still is gambling on the will of the people. See scenarios involving the idea that Alderaan is not self-sufficient in food. Basically, if hundreds of millions starve in pain over months, and then the ISB has to come in and send hundreds of millions more (assuming a 2 bil population) to Kessel or execution, is that really such a relative mercy?

Well it gives them a -chance- for survival, which is more than mass scattering the entire planet, genius.

And why would the ISB have the liquidate half the population? Its your UNPROVEN assertion that the populace will support Organa's secret activities.

People who are offered amnesty or the option to starve to death WILL overthrow the government. This isn't the Zealots and Masada where they all knew the legions were going to butcher them or sell them into slavery.

At the time of Alderaan, also, they were "experimental" (the ISB was written after Yavin). I'm not sure how many people would think of using an Experimental Weapon.

Technological stasis; this probably means the operational form has not been fully implemented in the fleet - it exists, and the Empire has had to take worlds with defenses before. Its not like shielded worlds just got away with murder before the Death Star.

The "Modified Golden Mean Fallacy" I see. Once you've decided to break with the official number, you are not supposed to keep it in mind, and let it affect your canon calculations. It is probably this kind of thinking that led to the 12.8km Executor.

Your Automation Theory is also fundamentally unfalsifiable. If I somehow manage to prove Sprawl 1 is occupied with something useful, you'd want me to prove Sprawl 2, then Sprawl 3.

And your constant emphasis on comparing it with Alderaan is not my point. It looks more like a subtle Appeal to Motive. The population estimate (billions range) I use is the Saxton-based one that I usually use. It was not made just to say "More people died on the DS than Alderaan", and it'd only be a small positive if it does. And honestly, on another day, in another thread, I'm not sure whether you'd contest it. I would contest the 1 million claim anywhere, not just here.

Too bad you're clueless; I never claimed you were wrong because of your intent or that you had to stay close to a lower estimate because that's what it started off with. But who cares when you're playing hard and fast with fallacy names, eh?

The point being that the more radically you want to say something is wrong or inaccurate in the canon, the more precise or conclusive evidence you need to have. You DO NOT HAVE ANY EVIDENCE. Only "shoulds" and "probablys."

And if you want to argue over a specific threshold, you had better have that evidence.

If you want to make a case for Alderaan's population being larger than 2 billion, you are free to make your pitch, and if it validates (though I'm not sure how you are going to do so, given that we don't even have close canon shots of Alderaan),

The Illustrated Star Wars Universe by Anderson, genius.

I'm not going to try and raise the DS' population in some kind of silly matching game (unless, of course, I come up with something compelling I'm willing to pitch anywhere, not just in threads about the Ethics of Blowing Up Alderaan - hell, if you made a good pitch, I'd even remember to point it out the next time someone uses the two billion figure, and not just in these threads).

Its simple. TISWU depicts levels of development at least consistent with Geonosis if not outright more unnatural and extensive.

How does "relatively isolationist" = She has no incoming traders, tourist ship pilots, merchants, smugglers ... etc, who might just have noticed that always up planetary shield.

In the Corellia example, it was policy for awhile for them to demand all traders deliver to outposts at the edge of the sector, and their merchant marine would bring them in and around the sector.